Take heed to thyself. Your own soul is your first and greatest care. You know a sound body alone can work with power; much more a healthy soul. Keep a clear conscience through the blood of the Lamb. Keep up close communion with God. Study likeness to Him in all things. Read the Bible for your own growth first, then for your people. Expound much; it is through the truth that souls are to be sanctified, not through essays upon the truth. Be easy of access, apt to teach, and the Lord teach you and bless you in all you do and say. You will not find many companions. Be the more with God. My dear people are anxiously waiting for you. The prayerful are praying for you. Be of good courage; there remaineth much of the land to be possessed. Be not dismayed, for Christ shall be with thee to deliver thee. Study Isa vi, and Jer i, and the sending of Moses, and Ps li 12, 13, and John xv 26, 27 and the connection in Luke 1. 15,16. . . . .

I am often sore cast down; but the eternal God is my refuge. Now farewell; the Lord make you a faithful steward.

Robert Murray M'Cheyne, letter dated March 22, 1839, to Rev W.C. Burns, who had been named to take M'Cheyne's pulpit during the latter's trip to Palestine. Andrew Bonar, ed, Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M'Cheyne, (1844), 1966, Banner of Ttruth, p. 273-4.

[Are you so busy caring for others that you are failing to care for your own relationship to God? We can be busy in our ministry when are hearts are not with God, but we cannot fulfill God's call on our lives, or honor and glorify Him, unless we are right with Him. So may we take heed to ourselves! Coty]